That’s illogical captain. I could use the same argument then to say that because there’s life on this planet there must therefore be life on other planets. Heck, we’ve observed it here right?
It’s even likely wouldn’t you say? Or do you not subscribe to the Mediocrity principle either?
Yeah, and people do on a disspointingly regular basis… but actually you can postulate on ‘nothing’ that’s exactly what the Fermi paradox is based on, a whole lot of nothing. There’s no evidence to support that other civilisations have or do exist, there I postulate that there are none. Whether you subscribe to the mathematical likelyhood of there being other civilisations or not is irrelevant isn’t it, we still don’t see them.
It’s based on simple logic Shaun. Follow these two possibilities:
There aren’t/never have been any ETs - so it’s pretty obvious why we don’t see any evidence of them.
There are/have been ETs - then why do we not see any evidence of them especially given that there’s been plenty of time for lots of civilisations to have come and gone? (If you want we can judge that by the conditions/time required for our own perfectly observable civilisation).
Shaun, you don’t have to observe something for it to exist, sometimes we can postulate from evidence suggesting something exists, that’s how we know about black holes for example, or planets around other stars which we can’t actually see but can detect through their effect on the star itself etc etc. So the most convincing argument for there never having been any successful ET civilisations is not what we can see, but what we can’t see i.e. that there’s no evidence of them using up resources. Now, tell me how some calulation that you’re not qualified to dismiss out of hand has anything to do with that logic?
[FONT=“Georgia”]And that would be a what?.. An observation.
We can make an educated guess based on that kind of observation about what could be there, but I’d still go so far as to say we won’t know for sure until we see more and more corresponding evidence; Slowing building the whole picture together. Which we do, in fact, as time goes on.
I’m sure you agree that we can’t “postulate” based on nothing, right? Or else I could stand here all day coming up with zany ideas about flying spaghetti monsters and whatever else I want, and tell you that it exists, even though it’s not observed.
So agreeing with that (as I hope you do), do you get where I’m coming from when I say we can’t have Drake Equations or Fermi Paradoxes or whatever, until we observe a civilisation (ours, in this case) grow into the kind of one we’re looking for? If we aren’t there yet, then we don’t know for certain what to look out for.
You can postulate that something zany, unknown to our technology, that we wouldn’t ever expect, is already out there. But there’s no way to calculate equations or paradoxes based on that kind of postulation, because any one is as arbitrary as another. Else I can say there’s an advanced civilisation of flying spaghetti monsters warping through space, and you’ll have to accept.
[FONT=“Georgia”]hahaha, Same question man; What is it based on?
It’s the paradox that there aren’t as many ET’s floating around as “calculations” predict. Calculations based on what?
If someone invents a spaceship tomorrow morning and sets sail for Proxima Centauri, then we can say, “Okay, so as far as we’ve observed, it takes a planet maybe 4.5 billion years to produce a lifeform that could travel long distances through space,” and then we can put that figure into a calculation and base an estimate on that.
Until we can do that, we don’t even know for sure if that kind of travel is possible, let alone how long it would take, or how fast the vessel can travel.
So what are the estimates based on?
And again, I’m not saying travelling lightyears isn’t possible for a species. I don’t know if it is or it isn’t, and neither do you, until we observe a creature to do it. So if/when we observe a human or some other creature do it, then we can have reliable estimates, and paradoxes based on those estimates.
But until then, like I said before, all we have are speculations, theories, ideas, and dreams.
Intelligent Life… I mean extraterrestrials with some technology as our own technology or similar one - artificial satellites, a moon (their moon if they have) landing, colonies on other planet, mathematics and astronomy, general knowledge, medicine, chemistry, etc.
But they will have the same problems: they have to overcome the vacuum and the gravitation to be able to make space-time travels.
Not necessarily. We can only do math and physics based on our own work and our experiences.
Who said we even need to physically move through a set of coordinates to reach another set from an initial set? What if they found away to travel along a pseudo-coordinate system which allowed for travel to the other side of the universe instantaneously?
Though, bringing up my previous point - what if they didn’t necessarily exist as chemical-based life? We gain energy from consuming other chemical entities (i.e. respiration, digestion etc) and convert them into our own building blocks, to grow and repair. What if life forms existed made of… photons, for example? It sounds ridiculous, but if there was a way for photons to interact to such a point that they can be controlled, stopped etc then it sounds plausible. Travelling the universe consuming light to grow, being able to travel the speed of light and having thought processing a billion times faster and more efficient than our own.
If they have been visiting the Earth, so they must have spent tons of fuel. Which means that 1. they want to explore us or 2. go to a war to crush us. I don’t believe not in the first nor the second.
The space is a huge, endless space and the distances between the planets or some artificial habitats are giant, endless too.
You keep focussing on this equation, even though frankly I don’t think you’re remotely qualified to debunk it, but like I already said, forget it, move on.
What about the Fermi paradox, how do you explain that?
Life is not mathematics, scholarly the life did appear on Earth satisfying a lot of conditions and it looks like somebody or something helps very very much this process from the beginning to the present…And this somebody is not extraterrestrial , who helps him to appear ?
Interesting question.
I think it’s completely immaterial as to whether or not there is other life.
As for intelligence, I think we have a severely limited concept. I think the universe itself is “intelligent”. Intelligence is not the fairy tale we attach to it.
Anyway, given that carbon seems to be the only substance both reactive and diverse enough to support the adaptability required for ongoing life, and the relative scarcity of carbon given the universal cooling pattern, it’s highly doubtful in my eyes that there are co-existing life forms.
That or giant space ants will come and force me to work in their underground sugar mines.
Don’t get me wrong…I would certainly be thrilled to discover that there is life outside our solar system–intelligent or not. Heck, I was interested in NASA’s released findings this week of additional extrasolar planets and systems. Better odds at finding an inhabited one, right?
like stephen hawkins said, may be its not much good idea getting in touch with aliens timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/space/article7107207.ece I am sure that wont stop the curious mind of humans. who knows curiosity might kill the cat eventually.
…
